wanderlust chaser

Tag Archives: Nutcracker

My husband is like a kid whenever he sees a zoo or aquarium. So obviously we had to go to the Planet Neptune Oceanarium as soon as he saw that it is close to our hotel. I must say that they truly have lots of weird and wonderful fish species. It was just a bit difficult to find the place. When walking around in Russia, make sure to have both an English and Russian version of a map with you..

Thereafter, on our way to the closest metro station, we had to walk through a Christmas market. It was so nice and cheerful!

We then took the metro to the station closest to Peter and Paul Fortress. This is considered to be the place where St. Petersburg was started. In the middle of the fortress is the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul.

Walking back to the metro was really extremely cold. That was when we started dreaming of South Africa’s warm and sunny weather. It feels unreal that we’ll be walking around in shorts next week. It started snowing heavily while we were walking. We tried capturing it on photos but it is difficult – flash photography worked the best but does not really do it justice.

We had dinner at a very nice pub called Shamrock Irish Bar. After the cold, they provided the best comfort food that we could think of: meatloaf and cottage pie with a Guinness and some cider on the side.
We then did something that made me realise that dreams do come true: we watched The Nutcracker ballet in the Mariinsky Theatre. It is the same theatre where it premiered in 1892. The theatre is very beautiful and incomparable.

Me being me, I enjoyed the music the most and paid a lot of attention to the orchestra. I was impressed by the fact that it had 4 french horn players!

I enjoyed the ballet very much. It was most definitely worth it to attend. My husband managed to sneak a few photos of the dancers after it ended. These were the main characters.